Inspiring Your Audience with Content. How to Drive Thought Leadership Goals Using LinkedIn Sponsored Updates

Transcription

1 Inspiring Your Audience with Content How to Drive Thought Leadership Goals Using LinkedIn Sponsored Updates

2 Table of Contents! Why Social Media Fuels Thought Leadership! Establish Thought Leadership with LinkedIn Sponsored Updates in 4 Easy Steps Page 2 Page 6 Step 1: Define Goals and How You Will Measure Them Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Table of Contents Step 3: Turn your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates Page 6 Page 8 Page 15 Step 4: Optimize Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness! Takeaways for Thought Leadership Success! Additional Resources Page 20 Page 27 Page 28 1

3 Thought leadership enables sales & marketing success. 68% of B2B content marketers cite thought leadership as a goal, and brand awareness is the top goal for B2C content marketers. " Source: Content Marketing Institute 2014 Research" 2

4 You must be sharing content and engaging in conversations through social media to impact the buying cycle. Expose your thought leaders and you begin the process of becoming a social business real people with real faces talking to real customers and buyers. Discover - Michael Brenner, SAP Advocate 60 % Explore Select The reality is that 60% of the sales cycle is over before your buyer even talks to a sales person. Your content can help inform them as they discover, explore, and select possible solutions. 3

5 On LinkedIn, you can share content and build relationships with the world s professionals. Marketers Content Audience LinkedIn is the #1 social media site for corporate website traffic." Content pages on LinkedIn receive 7x the number of page views as job pages. 1 of every 3 professionals on the planet is on LinkedIn, including decision makers. 4

6 LinkedIn Sponsored Updates help marketers achieve thought leadership goals. HSBC created long term value, attracting over 3,500 new followers to the HSBC Commercial Banking LinkedIn " Company Page." " Nissan reached and engaged " a senior level, global audience." " Adobe s audience of marketing decision makers was 79% more likely to agree that Adobe can help me optimize my media spend after exposure to Adobe s Sponsored Updates." 5

7 Step 1 Define Your Goals and How You Will Measure Them 6

8 Step 1: Define Your Goals and How You Will Measure Them Thought leadership success starts by defining how you want people to react to your content. If you want engagement or shares If you want downloads Use ungated, visually appealing, snackable content to encourage sharing and commenting from your audience. Use gated content and have a clear, compelling call-to-action to drive downloads from your landing page. 7

9 Step 2 Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content 8

10 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content There are three types of thought leadership content to consider integrating into your content strategy. Industry Thought Leadership (News & Trends) Product Thought Leadership (How-To, Best Practices) Organizational Thought Leadership (e.g. Company Culture) 9

11 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Thought leadership is about sharing your own unique point of view on a specific topic. Example: At Citi Bank, a Chief Economist out of London shares content about emerging marketers. Similarly, an opinionated (and often right) equity analyst covers tech topics. The company s Connect group on LinkedIn centers on topics relevant to professional women. 10

12 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Build expertise around a niche you can own. Rather than creating one-off posts on a variety of topics, pick a topic or theme that you can own. Then create a library of content around that niche area of interest to demonstrate your expertise. To build your library of content: Think broadly about the best type of assets to position yourself as a thought leader. Video, third-party research, major publications and credible blogs are just a few assets you can add to your content library to highlight expertise." " Video" 3rd-party research" Blogs and Publications" 11

13 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Be genuine. Focus on educating the consumer. Use your CEO to publish the content if they are a LinkedIn Influencer or consider having an influential employee publish the content. Find your voice. Think broadly about the best type of asset to position yourself as a thought leader. Video, thirdparty research, major publications and credible blogs are just a few assets you can add to your content library to highlight expertise." " 12

14 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Connect content to a commercial insight or benefit. For example: CEB provided HR professionals with the insight needed to identify high potential individuals within their respective organizations. There are many companies who can help you do this. " 13

15 Step 2: Create Compelling Thought Leadership Content Challenge an assumption or show something your audience wouldn t normally expect. For example: Toptal, a marketplace for top developers and top companies, provided an honest, helpful analysis of the Node.js platform. There are many companies who can help you do this. " 14

16 Step 3 Turn Your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates 15

17 Step 3: Turn Your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates Adopt these best practices to craft compelling Sponsored Updates Do s Don t " Write compelling headlines. " Pique the interest of your audience with new lists, surprising info and teasers. " Do some ego baiting by linking to influencers on your topic who will share and amplify your content. " If you have dense content, try to either serve it up in smaller pieces or turn it into a big rock piece of content you can gate and generate downloads. Do NOT promote yourself while aiming to establish thought leadership. Your audience is less likely to be influenced if they perceive the content as promotional. Do NOT use images of your whitepaper or research report. Instead, find vivid images related to your core message that will attract attention to your headline. Do NOT mix and match campaign objectives while creating your content. Have a single, clear objective. " " 16

18 Step 3: Turn Your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates Track and test to find the messages that work best with your specific audience segments Example: Commercial banking company ABC has recently launched a new piece of research and is publishing updates to LinkedIn to drive finance decision makers to download it. " Thought Leadership Content Sponsored Update 1: Targeted to CFOs These insights can help you drive transformational change to your business. " [link to white paper landing page with tracking tag 1] Sponsored Update 2: Targeted to Controllers See what solutions your peers are " leveraging to deliver meaningful results." [link to white paper landing page with tracking tag 2] Sponsored Update 3: Targeted to Finance Managers Keep abreast of the latest trends in " commercial banking. Check out this report. " [link to white paper landing page with tracking tag 3] 17

19 Step 3: Turn Your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates Create an editorial calendar with thought leadership content always-on One-off campaigns, even if thoughtprovoking, won t establish you as a thought leader. Build consistency by publishing frequently on a topic that allows you to demonstrate expertise. 18

20 Step 3: Turn Your Content Into Compelling Sponsored Updates Remember: Nights and weekends are when people catch up on content, so don t turn off your campaigns. Instead, consider heaving up and customizing your messaging to drive relevancy. 19

21 Step 4 Tune Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness 20

22 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns For Maximum Effectiveness Landing pages should create a seamless experience from the update, providing content that delivers on the expectations you set with your headline, copy and call-to-action. A good landing page will: # Provide a rich, seamless experience from the update to your content # Naturally lead users to your call-to-action # Allow for easy discovery of more content that enables visitors to develop a deeper relationship with your brand " 21

23 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns For Maximum Effectiveness Most important, make sure your landing page is mobile responsive otherwise you are wasting engagement. 70% of clicks from Sponsored Updates will come from mobile. Learn how to make your landing page as mobile as your audience. Click here. 22

24 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness When creating the link for your LinkedIn updates, use a tracking code in the URL to measure results. Don t rely on referral source to measure visits. Get in the habit of tagging all URLs for LinkedIn posts; even if they are just organic posts, you may decide to sponsor this content later. 23

25 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness Once your Sponsored Updates campaign is live, you can track the performance using our LinkedIn Company Page Analytics tool. If you are running multiple updates to the same audience at one time, our ad server will automatically autooptimize towards the best performing content. 24

26 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness It s important to determine the value of a lead to your business. Bid accordingly and track performance against this benchmark. For example, if a lead is worth $100 to your business and you generally see 5% conversion rate from click to leads, you should bid up to $5.00 per click. 25

27 Step 4: Tune Your Campaigns for Maximum Effectiveness Be sure to set a budget that makes sense for your campaign. If you want to pace delivery of impressions, set a daily cap for your budget. - OR - If you have an upcoming event or time-sensitive campaign, set a total budget without a daily cap to exhaust your budget quickly, ensuring timely delivery of your message. 26

28 Steps To Thought Leadership Success with Sponsored Updates Print out this handy one-pager and make this your very own go-to guide for LinkedIn Sponsored Updates best practices for Thought Leadership. Step 1: Define Your Goals + Measurement What is the next action you want your audience to take? For engagement, use ungated, visual, snackable content. Encourage sharing and commenting. For downloads, use gated content and have a clear CTA to drive traffic to your landing page. Step 3: Turn Content into Sponsored Updates Go mobile your audience already is. Make sure your landing page create a seamless, rich user experience. Use vivid images related to the core message that will attract readers to your headline. Step 2: Create Compelling Content Have a point of view, and connect it to an insight or benefit. Challenge an assumption or show your audience something they wouldn t normally expect. Focus on educating with authenticity. Narrow to a specific topic, but think broadly when deciding which media assets to use. Step 4: Optimize Your Campaigns Make sure to include tracking in your URLs to measure results. Use Company Page Analytics to track performance and get insights. Set a budget that makes sense for your campaign and optimize accordingly. 27

29 LinkedIn Sponsored Updates Resources Best Practices: The Complete Sponsored Updates Guide for Your Marketing Team A Gallery of Great Sponsored Updates How to Optimize Your Sponsored Updates for All Devices The Sophisticated Marketer s Guide to LinkedIn How-To Videos: Getting Started with Sponsored Updates Targeting Your Sponsored Updates Setting Campaign Options Making Changes to Your Campaigns Reviewing Campaign Performance Using Company Page Insights How The Sponsored Updates Auction Works 28

30 Ready to get started with Sponsored Updates? Click here